Many civil servants ‘treading water’, says Francis Maude

Thousands of civil servants are "treading water" because it is too expensive to make them redundant, cabinet office minister Francis Maude has claimed.Speaking in front of the Public Administration Select Committee, in support of government plans to reform the terms and conditions of employment in Whitehall departments, Maude said: "In most departments there are people for whom there is no job. They are treading water and the reason for that is the current scheme makes it prohibitively expensive to go through the process of making them redundant.”